Dump It in the Sewers!

There is a rational solution to making our sewer utility permanently viable.

But demagoguery is blocking it. By appealing to the least common denominator in the populace, the regrettably naive and ignorant (ignorant=unknowledgeable, which is not to say that they are stupid, just gullible and susceptible to the machinations of politicians who prosper at their expense), the entrenched regressive majority of the council is both pandering and insulting the constituency it purports to represent.

Mrs. Shirley Baird today took keyboard in hand to praise Mr. Coffey and Mrs. Benedetti in their attempt to stifle a homeownership study, evidencing her support in the pages of The Tribune. I, for one, believe that Mrs. Baird would be a much better representative for the former 1st District than the incumbent, but we cannot help but be deterred in supporting her ambitions when we see her lending her own support to these two.

Claiming to be in support of the downtrodden, the proverbial "fixed income" minority, these two are prepared to squander the city's resources on behalf of our municipalitiy's most profligate users of water, and accordingly, sewer services.

If, in fact, they (Coffey, Benedetti, Price, and unnamed other members of council) desire to protect the interests of those of limited income, they should be honest enough to propose direct subsidies to those deserving residents of our fair city.

Instead, they propose to boost the checking accounts of industrial and commercial users of our sewer system by depleting the limited resources of the EDIT tax fund. With admitted, imprecision, the EDIT funds available each year to the city measure about $2 million. Of that sum, the Coffey-Benedetti Cotillion propose to subsidize the Wal-Marts, the SamTecs, the Pillsburys, even the Destinations Booksellerses with EDIT tax funds so as to make their sewer bills lower.

In addition, they propose to deplete the city's EDIT fund resources by artificially lowering the sewer bills of non-residents, those whose EDIT taxes, if they pay them, are paid into another jurisdiction's coffers.

Why not, shadowna5 asks, make the sewer utility self-sustaining? If, as the Coffey-Benedetti Cotillion claims, they want to "keep sewer rates low" so as to "protect" the least among us, they would propose direct subsidies to those "least among us."

Our sewer utility should be self-sustaining and self-supporting. If, as a policy, our representatives wish to "protect" the most vulnerable, they should appropriate funds directly from EDIT funds to subsidize those ratepayers.

Instead, with transparent pandering objectives, they propose to deplete critical municipal resources (EDIT funds) to give handouts to corporate and commercial entities, the ratepayers who are exerting the greatest pressure on our sewer treatment resources, all in the name of "protecting" an indefinable class of amorphous residents.

Why, we ask, should the most profligate users of our water/sewer resources be rewarded at the expense of the city as a whole?

Worth much further examination, and as yet unexamined in public discourse, is the fact that non-residents, who do not pay EDIT taxes to the city, would be rewarded from the resources of the EDIT fund and would see their sewer rates kept artificially low at the expense of New Albany taxpayers.

We choose to believe, for the moment, that our representatives just don't understand the consequences of diverting EDIT funds to sewer subidies. Any other interpretation requires a belief in either abject corruption or in irredeemable stupidity.

And yet, as this is written, it seems a foregone conclusion that the Coffey-Benedetti coalition intend to divert precious city resources to the most intensive users of the sewer utilty. By keeping sewer rates low by using tax resources, they are saying that it is a city priority to strip voters of dollars in order to give them to business interests.

Who's crazy? Us or them?